Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday July 05, 2012 @07:48AM
from the please-don't-steer-my-car-this-way dept.

Diggester writes that a group of researchers from Universiteit Maastricht's Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience Department of Neurocognition
"have invented a system that translates thoughts into letters. This really is an incredible breakthrough for any type of handicap, from serious motor impairment to debilitating speech. The system has been in real-world testing and is an extraordinary success. The patients are set up to look at a screen of the alphabet, thinking about each letter for a period of time; they should be able to think-type in real time. While it is not near the speed of actual typing, it is the only program of its kind and can only get better." "Of its kind" being relative, reader cylonlover writes "Tech startup Neurovigil announced last April that Stephen Hawking was testing the potential of its iBrain device to allow the astrophysicist to communicate through brainwaves alone. Next week Professor Hawking and iBrain inventor, Dr Philip Low from Stanford University, present their findings at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference in Cambridge, England. In anticipation, Gizmag spoke to Dr Low about the potential applications of the iBrain."

And don't forget: I'm typing with my brain right now. I've been typing with my brain for years, and so have lots of other people.

As a matter of interest, if you aren't typing with your brain, what are you typing with? Your liver? Your kidneys?

What I haven't been doing is "using a few million dollars of highly specialized gear to type without using my hands", which is what this story is actually about, along with all these other ridiculous "using ONLY your brain" claims written by people who seem not to

We are always striving for more random data sources and I think they may have hit on something, attach this to the brain of any video-game addled teenager and what they "think" is sure to be as close to pure random noise as you could ever hope to achieve.

What if I am deaf (or using headphones) and I don't turn off the speaker connected to output my thoughts? Or what happens if somebody is not aware that the device is connected to output their thoughts? Would be used for interrogations? I see a lot of funny/embarrassing/interesting things happening with this device if it really works in the real world.

Instead, his computer screen has a cursor moving across a QWERTY grid. When it's on the letter/word he wants, a very faint twitch from his cheek, which is the equivalent of a mouseclick, selects the letter/word.

Replying to myself to add info. The cheek movement is captured by a tiny camera hanging from his glasses. Furthermore, I never saw electrodes attached to his head, which proves his brilliant brain isn't used for typing.

Because Hawkins recognizes the importance of science education and outreach, maintains a media presence and published books to help laypeople understand at least a rough outline of theoretical physics. Higgs just published really arcane mathematics. Arcane mathematics is a very useful thing to have, certainly, it is what drives science and technology forwards, but it isn't going to motivate people to get into science as a career. Hawkins did math too, and I'm not even close to qualified to judge who did the most useful math, but I know that Hawkins has done a lot more to raise the standard of science education in the wider culture, and that makes him the winner by my judgement.

Because despite being all but locked-in, the man found a field he liked to work in, rose to arguably the single most respected teaching position in the world, and managed to not only gain an exceedingly rare degree of fame for a scientist, but to use that fame to raise respect for science itself. That's freaking badass. He's one of the best role models out there for people learning to adapt to some of the worst curveballs life can throw at you.

Maybe not in the actual stage, but in a not so far future, if it manages to get practical/faster, for everyone and in portable devices (google glass 2.0?), could it change how we think? A part of what we are is that conversation with ourselves that we call concience, if you start talking with a keyboard, maybe for everyday tasks (like searching in google/wikipedia, posting in social networks or keeping a mindblog), that could be dangerous? or just will be more or less the same as talking with an actual keyb

Colleagues, friends, parents, etc. hate my loud clicky keyboards since I type fast and loud like a machine gun (what my college friend said when I was in college). See here [aqfl.net] for the details and a poll.:( If this brain typing can be fast or faster than what I can think, then I will use it! Wait, I don't have a brain.:P